I am done with transformation. I am turning to creation now.

Why I am done with transformation

For the longest time of my professional life I have been working, researching and thinking in terms of transformation – my highest intention was to help organizations – or social system – transform. Transformation in the sense that something already has taken on a mental and structural and then I help these forms transform into something new and different.

Now I am done with that. I have no patience anymore to go where people and organizations are at and help them transform into something new. It just takes too much time, too much of my energy, too much of everything. This whole from-to process is in someway always related to the past: The problem ist, that you always need to carry the past and present state like a burden, it holds as back, we have to overcome the patterns and we get easily stuck.

Sometimes I don’t want to meet people where they are

In my work with Leadership Teams this means to meet people where they are – and honestly, I have no patience anymore to meet Leaders in a place of mechanical and static thinking, in their need to control everything, in their anxieties to make corporate mistakes and in their mindset of separation, competition, greed, fear and tribal power thinking. I just can’t. Maybe I am lacking compassion of empathy, but anyhow I don’t fit their either. I cannot and I don’t want to help them satisfy their needs for predictability, a sense of safety through control and the idea of a world out there, that is independent of their own behavior. AND have a greatly motivated team and modern culture at the same time, just without paying the price of letting go and starting from within.

Realizing what is true for me is a little scary

If you think that sounds frustrated, you are right. But when I look into my model I described in “moving from breakdown to breakthrough with grace” I am currently at stage 2 on my way to breakthrough. The moment where I realize and accept my scary truth and turn towards the valuable information moving behind the uncomfortable emotions: the fact, that I am done with what I have done and offered for the last 20 years, trying hard, to help legacy corporations transform into sustainable and great organizations with inspiring cultures and great Leadership. It is possible, sometimes to some extent, but really, the price is high and I had my share. And this is really scary, as I have built a business model and professional identity around it. It is threatening at one level but liberating at another level as it frees up resources for what I am truly up to right now, which is turning fully towards the act of creation.

I am more interested in the act of creation now

I rather turn to the idea of creation, supported among others by a concept by Otto Scharmer et al called “Presencing” which is downloading a future state into the now, as I would phrase it. For me this is so much more interesting, what a relief to not to deal with all the old patterns and burdens and past paradigm consciousness, but turn towards people and systems who are ready to honor the past without being defined and limited by it.

I rather look into the possibility of the moment, the potentiality of the future and the creation of something that is in resonance with the actual world, not the past world. I am up to creating different kind of organizations and societies, that are growing out of a mind- and heartset of connection and empathy and joy and integrity. I am willing to take whatever it needs, all the difficulties and hardships, but to work towards a future I believe and I want to be a part of.

I want to offer my help and abilities and love and commitment to people and leaders who can see and appreciate exactly these qualities and not people who judge me on the grounds of their pure analytical mind. And really, these people are hard to find in CEO positions, as most of them come from another time and paradigm and something just doesn’t work anymore between us. There is a gap and I am not willing to go down the rabbit hole anymore. People might say this is arrogant, and I will lose clients, that’s OK, but for me it is my truth and I am open and confident and observing already, that a whole new type of like-minded clients and leaders and colleagues and communities show up: Interesting and interested and curious, open, explorative, learning and willing to creating a new world. Together.